Kamis, 12 Mei 2016

Muslim Press in Areas Forming Pakistan Print journalism made its advent in the sub-continent in the last quarter of the 18th century. The first (English) newspaper, The Calcutta General Advertiser was started by Mr. James Augustus Hicky in 1780. It came to be known as Hickys Gazette. Several other newspapers, mostly weeklies or fortnightlies and monthlies, appeared from Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. All of those papers were started by the Europeans for the Europeans with obviously limited circulations. In size they were all tabloid. The local language press made its appearance in the first quarter of the 19th century. The first such newspapers used Bengali as its medium. The Muslims were generally far behind the Christians and the Hindus socially, educationally and financially. Moreover, they were not strong in the eastern areas. They had some hold in northern India where they entered the field in the second quarter of the 19th century. The first Urdu newspaper, Syed-ul-Akhbar, appeared from Delhi in 1836 followed by the Delhi Urdu Akhbar in 1837. Many other Urdu newspapers appeared from Delhi, Lukhnow, Lahore and Multan etc.

The Muslim press had-just started taking strides when it was overtaken by the war of Independence in 1857. The failure of the freedom struggle came as a crushing blow for the Muslims. In the pre-partition Punjab English journalism was monopalised by non-Muslim enthusiasts and with their exit after the establishment of Pakistan an urgent need for a powerful and financially sound Muslim English daily was felt. This need was met by the Pakistan Times. Its first publication, February 4, 1947, almost synchronized with the start of the civil disobedience movement by the Muslim League. This paper was sponsored by Mian Iftikharuddin, who, after establishing a publishing concern known as The Progressive Papers limited, was soon able to secure the sympathy and cooperation of nearly all those who were in the high command of the Punjab Muslim League at that time.